PHP Puts Web Apps, Wikis in Users' Hands

An increasing number of next-generation business and social-networking Web applications over the next few years will be originating from their users, rather than from software companies, an IBM executive told the audience at the Zend PHP Conference and Expo Wednesday.

Not only will the applications be conceptualized by non-technical people, they will be built by them, he said.

Rod Smith, IBM's vice president of Internet emerging technology, addressed the opening session of the conference, which continues here through Friday.

A healthy number of those new Web-centric applications will be constructed using the open-source middleware programming language PHP, he said.